3i9 





Qass 



Book_.^a. 



bELIVERED BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE 

IN CHARLESTON, (S. C.) ^ <^V 

AT THEIR ' 

ANNIVERSARY MEETING, 

DECEMBER 20th, 1819, 



By benjamin FANEUIL DUNKIN, Esq^ 



[published at the REaUEST OF THE SOCIETtJ 

CffJRLESTOJV, (S. C.) 

?binted at the courier office. 









/C,-dJ^^^ 



(x> 



AWSS^Ya^^^ &c* 



^b. 



Gentlemen of the New-England Society, 



w 



E are assembled to celebrate the actions 
and the sufferings of our forefathers. To reverence 
the virtues of the good, is one step towards our own 
improvement. It was the custom of the ancients, to 
excite their youth to acts of heroism, by narrating 
the valorous achievements of departed worthies ; 
and the American savage is frequently roused to en- 
thusiasm, by the song of their warriors' triumph. — 
Ours is not the celebration of martial glory. The 
deeds of our ancestors, who landed at Plymouth, 
merit more sober approbation, claim a higher re- 
ward. Their march was over a trackless ocean, the 
enemies whom they left, were intolerance and perse- 
cution, those whom they encountered, w( re famine 
and disease, the savage and the tomahawk ; their 
fight was the good fight of faith, their victory the 
triumph of the cross. 

^' There are few States," says a foreign writer, 
^^ whose origin is so respectable as the Americans-— 
none, whose history is sullied with so few crimes '^ 
No sin, moral or political, drove the puritans of 
New-England from the parent country. They were 
offensive to a priesthood, whose religion consisted 



in forms and rituals ; who, like the Dominican friar, 
could recognize Christianity, only when shrouded in 
the scapular and the cowl. They preferred freedom 
of conscience to all temporal blessings ; and volunta- 
rily relinquished every earthly comfort in abandon- 
ing the land of their nativity. It is not easy to con- 
template this act without emotion. There is in it 
that energy of despair which we regard with a min- 
gled feeling of admiration and reverence. It marks 
a decision of character whose resolves the power 
of the Almighty alone could frustrate. It was 
enough that duty commanded them to go. To obey 
the voice of c nscience was the only passion of 
their soul, the single object of their ambition. This 
spirit kept them unmoved in storms and tempests ; 
this supported them in sickness and in sorrow ; this 
€nc turaged them in toil and in hardship ; this 
guarded with vestal vigilance, their primitive habits 
of piety, and morality, and industry. 

On the twentieth day of December, 16S0, their 
company landed qn the rock at Plymouth. All 
the evils to which man is su])ject seemed in conspi- 
racy against this band of pilgrims. Pestilence and 
famine assumed new horrors in a climate to whose 
severty they were hitherto strangers. I'hey were 
dejected but not in despair. The exposure of the 
first winter carried off half their number. Still 
their zeal was unabated, their fortitude undismayed. 
They est^iblished settlements, they erected temples 
to (xod ; they extended the blessings of civilization 
to the savage of the wilderness. To these hardy 
and en^erj.rizing adventurers, NeAV-England owes 
her origin. More---to them she is indebted for a 
high example of moral habits, of general intelli- 
g^Hice, of sturdy independence, of devoted patriot- 
ism, JSone love their country so dearly as those 



5 

who have shared her struggles for existence, who 
have grown with her growth, antl strengthened with 
her strength: None cherish liberty so fondly, as 
those who have bled to preserve it. Two centuries 
have nearly passed away, since the arrival of Stan- 
dish and Carver. In the single state of Massachu- 
setts this handful of men has become a body of 
seven hundred thousand. We are not prepared to 
say that this increase of numbers has never been 
equalled ; but may we not truly boast that so rapid 
advancement in population, knowledge and practical 
morality combined, has no precedent in history, no 
parallel in experience. 

"Time rolls its ceaseless course." Where the 
wolf prowled unmolested and the wild yell of the 
savage echoed among the hills civilization and so- 
ciety now smile. The eye is relieved by flourish- 
ing towns, the ear cheered by the busy hum of in- 
dustry. Population overflows, and the avenues to 
success in all the employments of life are so crowd- 
ed that the sons of N ew-England direct their views 
to other climes where the range is more extensive 
and the prospect more alluring. We, too, are wan- 
derers from the land of our nativity ; some cf us in 
boyhood, some in maturer years, have been " torn 
from all we knew, from all we loved ;'^ still with 
melancholy joy we look back to our country. What 
heart among us is so cold as not to be softened by 
iha remembrance of home ? whose imagination is 
not sometimes gladdened by recurrence to the scenes 
of his youth to the joys that are past ? In the still 
hour of night, when darkness and solitude reign, 
when the turbulent passions of the day are hushed, 
and man is alive to all that is good and holy in his 
nature, fancy then 1 ves to wing her way to tlie 
abodes of our fathers^ the companions of our child' 



6 

liood, the objects of our earliest aflpections, the birth- 
place of our purest h pes. It is a luxury of feeling 
which wealth cannot purchase ; an ench^intment of 
imagination which reality can never repeat. They 
are moments of pleasure, whicli enliven and redeem 
the sad age of existence; precious are they as the 
dews of Hermon, sacred as the joys of angels. 
These visions are transitory, and however refresh- 
ing, are still dreams. But destiny has not dealt 
unkindly with us. " Our lines have fallen in pleasant 
places.'^ We came to a land of stran2;ers, we were 
received with welcome, we have been cherished as 
brothers. I cannot think of Car^^lina witli coldness, 
I cannot speak of her with indifference ; but grati- 
tude is never eloquent ; nature, when she gave the 
feeling, denied the power of adequate expression. 
The virtues of our adopted coun ry are tiiose of the 
heart; they cannot be unknown., they cannot be for- 
gotten. Where is the sick whom they do not visit? 
where the sfflicfed whom they do not relieve? 
where the desolate wh m they do not conj^ole ? 
which of us canj^ot testify Jo some act of magnani- 
mity? whose soul hasu'-t been sometimes dissolved 
by the affectionate manifestations of their friend- 
ship? (h! there is a praise which sppaks louder 
than the language of men ! Their actions require 
no panegyric! *^They are rocrrded in tlie heart 
^* from whence tlipy sp u?ig, and in tie h.our of ad- 
" verse vicissitude, il it ever sljould arrive, sweet 
" will be the .dour of their memory, and precious 
^^ the balm of ilieir consohition.^' 

It were happy for us, if the dim te breathed the 
hospitality of its inhabitants. Every season sw^ eps 
some from our numbers. The p stilence, which 
stfvlks unseen, discrimin tes and destroys our devo- 
ted countrymen. During the past summer scenes 



of distress were of daily recurrenee ; the hearse and 
the pall, the sable habiliments of woe, the silent tear 
of grief, the funeral peal that rung the knell of de- 
pn^ted happiness — these wtre the only varieties 
which reminded us of life, which admonished us of 
death. The name of our young Society proclaimed 
us strangers and marked us for pi cuiiar exposure. 
"V^'e have cause for gratitude that so few haye fal- 
len ; yet our numbers have been lessened, our ener- 
gies reduced. Several have been prematurely taken 
away, who were respectable in life and are lament- 
ed in death. But we remember with singular sor- 
row the untimely fate of an officer of our society 
whose labors were indefatigable, whose attention 
was devoted, whose zeal was unremitting ; in the 
morning his expectations were high, his exertions 
ardent 5 at noon, he was stretched on the bed of sick- 
ness and of death, with blighted prospects and bro- 
ken hopes. The virtues of Mr. Crocker were silent 
and unobtrusive ; to be useful was his great ambi- 
tion ; those, who knew him best, loved him most 
loudly, lament him most sincerely. 

*' ^o marble marks his couch of lowly sleep, 
** But living statues here are seen to weep ; 
" Affliction's semblance bends not o'er his tomb, 
" Affliction's self deplores his youthful doom." 

^ This year d^ath has not left to strana-ers the 
miserable c^aisolation of beirg alone in calamity.— 
i he fairest trees of the native forests have been 
scathed and destroyed; those who were accustomed 
tf solace our trouble, themselves required our condo- 
lence. We mourned too for ourselves ; their friends 
had become our friends : their suffei ings were our 
sutterings ; their bereavements our bereavements ~ 



s 

Tlie visitations of the past year have fallen heavily 
on some of us ; they liave caused i pang for which 
the heart neither asks nor will receive consolatioa 

*' A fatal remembrance, a sorrow that throws 
" It's bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes, 
•' To which life nothing brighter nor darker can bring, 
" For which joy hath no balm and affliction no sting." 

I have dwelt longer on serious topics than is usu- 
al — perhaps longer tinn is season ihle ; I trust many 
years msy roll over before we have again such abun- 
dant cause for sombre reflections. 

The aunivernary of the landing of our forefathers 
should be hailed with triumph, by every son of New- 
England; on that d iy no cloud should obsure his 
happiness ; though far from the land of our birth 
we will not ^^hang our harps on the willows ;'' but 
with thoughts and feelings fondly turned to our coun- 
try let us weave the song of joy and congratulation. 
In taking the mantle may we imbibe the spirit of 
our ancestors ; may their hatred of oppression be 
hereditary, the remembrance of their enterprize 
and perseverance preserve in us kindred virtues, 
and the Rock of Plymouth, be to their posterity, a 
perpetual monument, of hardihood that knew not 
fear, of independence that would not succumb, of 
conscientious Christianity that dared not temporize. 



Vc^,' 



